The Hunger Games New Direction's style
by 4evrconfuzzled
Summary: Rachel Berry,the mayor's daughter of District 12, became the first ever volunteer of that district for the Hunger Games. Faberry.
1. Chapter 1

**NOTE**: This is a tribute to the Hunger games- _Book, where were you all my life?_- and of course, glee

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing, Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy and Fox and The Hunger Games is the product of Suzzane Colins' imagination.

R&R, please.

PART 1: Noah Puckerman, Coals, and Diamonds

CHAPTER 1

Fear.

That was the first thing she felt as she was raised into the arena, very bright sunlight throwing blackened specks on her vision after she had looked away, it wasn't surprising since fear had been her constant companion since that rainy day back home when she had raised her hand even before a name was chosen from hundreds of swirling papers on a stupid glass bowl, such an unacceptable way to be sentenced to death.

Sand, that was what she first saw and she could feel the vomit rising up her throat, she remembers watching that one sickening game where tributes- such as herself- proceeded to dehydrate to their deaths, that she could definitely attribute to the lack of water in that desert arena.

She looks around frantically, eyes glazing over the other tributes who were all pulling identical leather half jackets off their sweating bodies, for another sight other than sand. The Cornucopia was straight ahead, strings attached to its horns spanning the length above and attached to somewhere out of her vision, several things were dangled from them, the height diminishing the closer to the cornucopia. _Oh yes, of course, things dangled from a height, because that was one of her wonderful advantages_... Her brown eyes swerve to the left and a strangled sigh escapes her lips, trees, green trees, definitely deadly as well but a much more familiar sight.

She skimmed the things dangling above head, knives tied around their handles, maces, a loaf of bread, coats... she tries standing on her tiptoes and a laugh from her right sends her head snapping to that direction. A blonde girl was turned to her and laughing, the ends of her ponytail bouncing with the motion, hazel eyes shining with mirth. Either the girl was very brave, an incarnation of evil or simply losing her mind, no normal person can laugh in a situation such as this.

The blonde girl who had straightened, cocked her head to the side but Rachel can't take her eyes off her for a moment, the girl was for a lack of a subtler word, gorgeous. "Hey, dwarf. Look over there." She says and Rachel frowns instantaneously. She turns and sees occasional rocks jutting vertically in a line parallel to the three lines above. She could probably jump off them and try to snatch something.

"Hurry up before you blow to bits." She faintly hears as the girl tears out of her circular plate in a hurried run, another tribute crashing to the ground as his lunge at her missed.

"_Get out of there as fast as possible_" She remembers Schuester saying, so she steps out of her plate and skims the desert hurriedly for Finn, her fellow tribute from 12, he was nowhere to be seen. Rachel takes off for the forest, hoping against odds that he was somewhere safe. A cannon sounds and over the sounds of screams and breaking bones, Claudius Templesmith announces, "And the 38th Hunger Games open with a Bang!"

She looks around then above, debating hurriedly the merits off risking danger for a few supplies. She could die now or she could die later out of lack of _everything_. A tall rock boulder catches her eyes, a messenger bag and a knife dangling directly over it, no war-crazed tribute gnashing their teeth around it. Her trajectory changes before she could really make up her mind, and Rachel hated it, the uncertainty, the spontaneity of it all. Her hands scale the rough and gritty surface, shoes trying to find purchase and hang on, a hand on a protruding disfigurement, a foot in another one, the sounds of death intensifying around her. Her hand catches the strap of the bag and she yanks hard freeing it and immediately slinging across her shoulder and chest, straining to grab unto the knife.

Heavy breathing behind her and then a hand painfully yanking her hair, pulling the strands off of her scalp. She couldn't look back so she struggled to reach higher for that dangling knife, metal surface reflecting off the sunlight. Once close enough, she didn't bother with the handle as the yanking intensifies, whoever it was couldn't climb any higher and was trying to pull her down to her death, she seized the blade by the palm of her hand and yanked hard, that searing stinging making her whimper, she turns and slides on the diagonal surface, throwing her hand wildly and stabbing at a bent leg, the hand around her hair releases and with an agonized profanity, the big boned... obese... girl from district 3 rolled off the stone and fell to the ground clutching her leg in a fetal pose.

Rachel didn't bother feeling sick at the blood oozing from her wound as she hurriedly stole the loaf of bread lying deserted beside the girl and took off for the forest.

: :

Rachel congratulates herself as the times she allotted practicing ballet are paying off more than intended as her feet walks on the unpaved ground with barely a sound to prove that she was there.

6 cannon shots disturb the relative quiet of the forest together with the chirping of something that she could only hope as miniscule and harmless. The barbaric fight in the cornucopia must be over with 7 deaths to show for it. A scream sounds, a cannon shot_. Oh may I change that then, 8_.

She pulls some leaves off of the ground and wipes her knife with it, noticing her hand shaking, her knees feel like jelly and all she wanted was to drop down and wake up to her warm bed at home and her fathers cooing at her. She considers climbing up a tree since she was little but she hadn't had that much practice and by that she means she had only climbed up once and still had the scar on her left elbow to prove how disastrous that escapade was. So she continues walking and sweating because the sun was scorching hot. Her mouth dries and her throat feels rough inside. She needed to find a water source or she'll die just like if she was in the desert. She sinks down a cluster of bushes, sticking leaves on her hair like they taught on the training she diligently attended and paid attention to as the night continues to darken, pulling the bag closer to her and examining it: there was a small flashlight inside, a bundled up blanket, some kind of blue colored, elastic plastic that was also bundled up, a small box of some sort with a pump attached on top and a white straw. She stuffs the plastic of loaf inside, sighing.

_This is truly unfortunate and frankly horrifying! The only thing I could use was the blanket and using the flashlight would be a neon sign announcing: Yes, please line up accordingly and attempt to execute me, may I request that the type of said execution not be brutal_.

She slides down the dirt floor and hopes that Finn was safe and had gotten a much better inventory of materials than her when they eventually find each other.

: :

Her throat was burning when she eventually stumbles on a water source the next morning but of course getting water would never be that simple...

She unties the leather jacket from her waist and puts it on, hoping that it could be of some protection, ducking behind bushes and eyeing the group of 5 tributes who were guarding the little lake situated in a patch of greenery surrounded almost circularly with trees. Maybe there was another water source but she'll just die before she finds another one.

One of the tributes slumps down on the grassy plane and groans audibly, he had curly brown hair and even from a distance and the immediate danger, Rachel could see that he has a winning smile which he was currently flashing on a girl who had oddly muscular arms, her hair was tied back in pigtails and she was scowling at the world. The boy from 3 and the girl from 2. Career tributes trained for this very game, her stomach and gag reflex isn't too thrilled with the idea of facing off with them. "I'm bored" the boy from 3 says, now examining his fingernails, another tribute sitting by a rock on the furthest corner from me answers him, "And what would you suggest we do, oh ever knowledgeable St. James."

"I only appear knowledgeable because you are simply dumb, Azimio." The boy from 3 announces airily and the boy on the rock appears to want to launch himself at him and tear him apart. Laughter resonates around the space and I find myself staring at the blonde girl from the cornucopia, again laughing her heart out.

"You want a piece of me, Fabray?"

"Oh... I definitely want you in pieces." The girl answers, smirking testily. St. James, ... I search my brain, Jesse chuckles in amusement at Azimio's reddened face. Another guy clears his throat, stocky and tall, he was only wearing his leather jacket, his bare chest shining with sweat, his shirt tied around his head like some kind of bandana. "Come on then, let's go hunt." He says, smiling in that way that Rachel could feel the hair on her arms stand and a shiver run down her spine. She tries to place him from the pictures on the Television screen and from the parade that seemed worlds ago. Karofsky, David Karofsky. William Schuester had warned her not to confront him head on, and Rachel could understand why. The boy was lusting for blood. She remembers watching this very boy on screen, raising his hand to volunteer in District 2 to be a tribute, watch the confusion about sending a victor again to the arena. He volunteered, and it would definitely raise interest, and so David Karofsky was back to kill us all.

She rolls her eyes, _well, Mr. Schue isn't even a victor, there is no victor in district 12, he is clearly incompetent and unhelpful as a mentor, and it is clear that my dire circumstances can only be resolved by a direct encounter with him for the water_.

She watches them for awhile, noticing Jesse and Karofsky collecting weapons from a little stack by a rock and dumping food supplies in a black plastic. Then she watches them leave and knows that this is her chance, there was only Azimio and the two girls left. She looks around frantically for something to use as an additional weapon and notices a bush with needle like leaves and immediately pales examining the parts of her that was closer to it. She was clear.

The thing was clearly poisonous as this was the same bush that had killed her dog, Poku, one time when they had slipped from the chain fence back home to play in the meadow outside. She takes out the straw and carefully extracts the needles, placing them inside.

Her heart was beating out of her chest and she was sweating bullets, _if you don't mind figures of speech_. A survey of the tributes location places the oddly muscular girl closer to her in proximity, if she could only reach the edge of the woods she could launch the poisonous dart at her.

She creeps closer, wincing and choking up at every sound her feet makes, ignoring the scrapes of twigs on her body, the blonde girl turns in her direction and all she could do was freeze, the girl's beautiful... oh so beautiful hazel eyes widen and she is positive that the girl had seen her.

She clutches the white straw in her sweaty hands, staring back at the blonde girl... district 4, she thinks, trying not to make any sudden movements like the girl was some wild animal that would attack at any slight provocation_... she probably is... they all are_.

She knew she needed to make a move, positively, definitely... because just standing there is a sentence to death by itself. The girl smirks at her, raises a perfectly curved eyebrow... _curses, is everything about this girl perfect_... and Rachel knew it was now or never. She started to run, imaging herself in slow motion as the district 4's mouth begin to move, the leaves crunch beneath her feet, the oddly muscled girl starts to turn towards her but Rachel kept on running, her stomach sinking from the realization that she had miscalculated the distance, gritting her teeth she pushed forward even faster, watching her target's eyes narrow gravely, she barely registered a growl as a body came careening towards her, she hits the ground with barely a breath and Azimio's hands were already in her neck, squeezing the life out of her.

There was humming in the back of her mind, hazy, she figures that it was her Father... the humming turning into his boisterous laughter, deep but somehow floating at the same time... laughing and laughing until it wasn't him and the current reality slams back into her and Rachel opens her eyes to crazed black eyes, sweat falling on her face and Azimio's laughter in her ears, she could hear herself choking and feel the flesh on her fingernails as she scratched the boy's arms, frantically. She thrashed on the ground trying to throw him off, as the sound around her turns into static, the fingers of her right hand finding the straw, bringing it into her lips and blowing, it finds Azimio's left cheek and the boy looked annoyed and sadly, not poisoned, smacking her across her own cheeks, her teeth cutting the insides of her mouth. Then she watched his eyes roll back, the pressure on her neck disappearing and with a surprised sound he dropped dead on her, and the cannon sounded.

She dimly registered the body being thrown off her and the oddly muscled girl's oddly muscled arms positioned to kill her with that long sword on her hands before the green and the blue of her current nightmare faded and she was back with Noah, listening to him enthusiastically telling her how he would find diamonds in those coals someday and then, none of District 12 would ever be hungry... he's playful and husky voice lulling her into unconsciousness.

_Rachel, I think you're a diamond in the rough... _

She was pretty sure he heard that somewhere.

Thanks for reading and I just want to reiterate how awesome the Hunger Games was. Next chaper would be back in District 12 and why Rachel ended up a volunteer.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Glee is not mine but Fox', sadly and the Hunger games is Suzzane Collins and now I guess Lion's Gate's property.

A/N: Decided to continue this long suspended fic as a late celebration for that new promo of Catching Fire

The girl who laughed in danger's face

Chapter 2

_Her mother left them after a brief trip to the Capitol, walked through their door, luggage in hand, detached the arms that Rachel encircled her with before climbing up the stairs, minutes later her luggage was much bigger. _

_She remembers the loud "thud" of the tatty old bags as they dropped on their wooden floor as her mother opened her arms wide and Rachel gleefully melted on them. She remembers the light touch of her lips on her forehead, the tightening of the embrace and the single tear that her mother hurriedly swiped away. _

_She remembers how her mother placed her palm on her father's cheek for a moment, the both of them finding it hard to smile, she remembers the "I love you two so very much" before her mother walked out the door. She never walked back in again._

_Rachel was 6._

_She was 8 when she sees her mother seated beside the Capitol's Minister of Finance on television, that smile that she misses everyday directed at a young boy with the same exact shade of hair as she does._

_You weren't supposed to hate your brother, but a part of her does. _

_Her father cried the whole night her mother left then didn't cry again, and Rachel began noticing that whenever people asked him how he felt about her leaving, he'd always say that he lost his 'best friend.' At twelve, Leroy came staggering into their garden, ruining the carrot patch and trampling over the garden gnomes, her father couldn't say no when he saw the gun shot through his gut, a doctor first and foremost. _

_Rachel knew something was off with Leroy at first glance, the tattered white cloth he wore, the fact that he couldn't speak, the panicked and fearful look in her father's eyes._

_Rachel was 14 when her father learned to love again, Leroy and him would sometimes hold hands, would hesitantly touch their lips with each other. And maybe...maybe loving again wasn't the case... maybe it was the first time her father ever loved._

_Rachel was 15, and she knew then why her mother left, and she spent the first few months of that year, hating her father and Leroy. Her father begged for her forgiveness, said she never wanted to hurt her mother and Rachel, said he was sorry it was hurting her but he can't help what he feels. _

"_Just please tell me... just please tell me your happy... truly happy this time."_

"_The only time I was happier was when I first held you in my arms."_

_She couldn't hate them after that. How could she hate her father for trying to be happy?_

_At 16, Rachel raised her hand to be a tribute for the Hunger games minutes before the Capitol soldiers handcuffed Leroy, for being an Avox who ran away from serving the Capitol and serving his punishment, and her father, for aiding a fugitive for so many year. _

_She walked her way dazedly up the makeshift stage, and trembled and cried her way down. _

_She remembers her father, free from those metal bracelets, pushing through the soldiers and crying for her. She remembers the blinding lights of the T.V. crew swivelling from her to her father._

_This was the only thing that she could do... and even then, she wasn't sure that giving up her life would save his_.

:: ::

Something was dripping on her. The cold droplets making her shiver for a moment after its impact on her cheeks. It was slowly clearing the fog in Rachel's head, allowing sounds to slowly trickle in... the constant chirping. She could feel the breeze settling on her exposed arms, cooling the perspiration and raising goose bumps across her flesh, she vaguely wonders where her jacket had gone, moving her hand across the grass to look for it by touch.

"Oh... you are alive."

The panic was instantaneous, fear gripping her so hard that she had trouble breathing. Rachel opens her eyes, hurriedly mobilizing her aching body to scoot further away, hand gripping the knife handle stuck on her right boot. She could feel the tears streaming down her face- _she couldn't believe that she'd die this pathetically_.

The blonde girl from district 4 looked taken aback for a moment, slowly rising from her knees, both hands raised: one palm up and the other clutching a wet cloth.

"Calm down... dwarf. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Don't call me that." Rachel grits out, looking from side to side for a possible route of escape, she notices Azimio and the oddly muscled girl both laying some feet away, both on their backs, their hands resting together on their stomachs like they have been arranged that way.

_Did she kill them both_?

"Well I don't know your name. What am I supposed to call you?"

The blonde tribute flashes a sarcastic smirk her way, taking a step back and taking a hold of the long spear lying against a tree bark. _Well, that's better Rachel! She's armed now_!

_Well, bluff! Bluff your pants off_!

"I—I pr-promptly executed them, I can do it again... so—"

The blonde girl laughs, once again finding the humour in their fantastic situation, she raises the hand currently holding the spear and then one by one she straightens her fingers, staring straight at her probably terrorized eyes. Rachel's only indication that the girl was no longer holding the spear is the dull thud it makes as it hits the ground, she couldn't take her eyes off the girl.

"Please, you didn't kill Cynthia, don't make me laugh. You only survived that buffoon Azimio by a hair's breadth."

Rachel processes this, shakily rising to her feet and freeing the knife from her boots, she holds it out in front of her. She felt dishonourable though, raising a weapon when the other girl had just dropped hers. The girl just rolled her eyes and leaned against a tree, eyeing her with barely concealed wariness.

"So...if you killed her, you... saved me?"

The blonde girl rolled her eyes again, pushing away from the tree with some kind of graceful agility that Rachel attributes to dance and walks over without preamble towards her. Rachel immediately raises her knife, she tries to stop her hands from shaking but her body had completely betrayed her.

"Yes. Obviously." The girl takes the blade between two fingers, trying to force it down as Rachel shakily holds it aloft. "Put it down, dwarf." Her eyes were terribly commanding, the hazel shining with an intensity that demanded Rachel to obey her. Her arms fall down her body like dead weight.

"Don't call me that..." she breathes out weakly as the other girl stepped away once again, inspecting her.

"Listen, Dwa—"

"Must you insist?! It's Rachel, Rachel Berry."

The girl sighs opening her mouth to say something more when they both heard voices coming closer.

"_Seriously, Karofsky, can't you just kill them cleanly? I can't stomach you playing with them."_

"_I never thought that you were such a pussy, St. James..._"

Panic flashes so immediately on the blonde's eyes that Rachel's own heart lurches and then starts to beat out of her chest. A hand ceases her right wrist. "Listen to me... I want you to stab me in my right arm when Karofsky and Jesse steps into view... then you run... okay. You run the hell away from here dwa—Rachel. You don't stop until you're sure okay... not even to take a breath."

"I—don't—"

"I don't have time to walk you through this." the blonde hisses releasing her hand and taking a step back from her, she flashes Rachel a shaky sarcastic smile then shouts:

"What the-! Azimio! Cynthia!"

Rachel startles, raising her knife again as the blonde girl walks backwards towards her, from her peripheral she spots Karofsky's leather black jacket amidst the green around them. Rachel grits her teeth and stabs at the blonde girl, fear driving all her actions.

She whirls away to the sound of the girl's pain and takes off to the cover of the forest, running without direction.

"_Quinn! What happened?"_

"_I don't know... ahh!.. she came out of nowhere!_"

The low hanging branches scratch at her face as she runs maniacally away, the buzzing of unknown insects blending together and making her dizzy, the wind cold on her sweat soaked face. She was still holding the knife and it glints off the rays of sunshine managing to break through the thick foliage, it makes her panic more and she hurriedly places it in her boots.

She ran for awhile just like that, fear and panic driving her further, hunching forward as everything started to get heavy and as needles pricked at her legs and her lungs begged for air, until her legs finally gave and she staggered down the forest floor, leaves sticking to her cheeks. She rolled unto her back staring up at the darkening sky, apathetic to the carnage going on beneath it, then crawled on all fours to the thick cluster of bushes beside her. Shakily she stuck leaves in her hair and gathered herself into a ball, reaching in her bag to retrieve the blanket.

Her fingers touched the plastic bottle and she closed her eyes tight and snapped her jaw shut to try to stave off the tears when she took it out to find it filled to the brim.

She lost the battle as she took her first greedy gulp.

: : : :

To those who had been tempted by the movie and is contemplating reading the book. Do yourself a favour and please read it, it's not just a copycat of battle royale if that's the problem.

Thank you for reading.


End file.
